In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

chapter twenty-four OH! ABRAHAM LINCOLN! Early on Friday, April 21, after a prayer delivered by Phineas Gurley, the coffin was closed and the body of Abraham Lincoln was carried from the Capitol. One week after the assassination, the slain president at last began his long trip back to the home he had left four years before. Preceding the long column through the cold, rainy streets was a wedge-shaped detachment of cavalry. “Very slowly they proceeded, making their way steadily into the crowds which swarmed the streets, forcing them silently back to the curb,” wrote a viewer. “The horses’ footfalls were the loudest sounds, while sobs punctuated the stillness of the watching multitude.”1 When the cortege reached the railroad depot, a special train was waiting. In a beautifully ornate funeral car near the rear, the coffin was gently lowered. Nearby was placed a smaller casket. At Mary Lincoln’s insistence, the body of her little son Willie had been disinterred that he might be buried alongside his father in Illinois.2 With a pilot engine moving in advance several miles to prevent mishaps , the long journey officially began. Lining the track as the train pulled away were thousands of federal soldiers, including large numbers of sobbing black troops. Reported a chronicler: They stood with arms reversed, heads bowed, all weeping like children at the loss of a father. Their grief was of such undoubted sincerity as to affect the whole vast multitude. Dignified Governors of States, grave Senators, and scar-worn army officers, who had passed through scenes of blood and carnage unmoved, lost their self control and were melted to tears in the presence of such unaffected sorrow.3 At 10 a.m., the funeral train reached Baltimore, its first scheduled stop. 195 196 the darkest dawn Here, in the same city that Lincoln had secretly slipped through to avoid assassination four years earlier, the coffin was removed to the Merchants’ Exchange so that loyal Marylanders might pay their respects. After only a few hours, and with thousands of viewers still waiting in the rain, the casket was returned to the train for the planned 3 p.m. departure.4 Despite its brevity, the ceremony in Baltimore was solemn and moving. “Today has been a funeral day in every sense,” said one sad reporter. “The heavens are hung with black. . . . Not a gleam of sunlight has even for a moment burst through the heavy clouds which hang like a leaden pall over the city. All is gloom; deep, dark, impenetrable gloom.”5 When the train reached the Pennsylvania state line, Governor Andrew Curtin boarded the cars and rode along as a gesture of honor and respect for the fallen chief.6 After a brief stop in York, the funeral train reached the state capital, Harrisburg. There, at 8:20 p.m., during a terrible thunderstorm , the train finally halted.7 Because of the downpour, a scheduled procession through the streets was canceled, much to the chagrin of more than a thousand soldiers who had stood in the rain for an hour.8 From 9:30 until midnight, amid the roar and flash of both cannons and lightning, thousands defied the elements and trudged through the Capitol to view the body.9 Prior to reopening on the following day, April 22, an undertaker was compelled to chalk the president’s rapidly discoloring face and brush away dirt and soot that had accumulated on the beard and hair.10 When the doors opened at 8 a.m., again the people streamed in. At one point during the viewing, a terrible stampede occurred when gas jets ignited some drapery hanging from the chandeliers. Although the flames rose rapidly and fiercely, the fire was quickly brought under control.11 By 11:15 that morning, with forty thousand saddened citizens looking on, the train pulled away from Harrisburg and steamed east for America’s second largest city, Philadelphia.12 Now under a sunny, cloudless sky, the track was lined with mourning Pennsylvanians.13 One of those on the funeral train was a member of the honor guard, Robert Schenck. Although in private the Union general had detested Lincoln, referring to him as “the baboon” and to his wife, Mary, as “her royal majesty,” Schenck was stunned by the outpouring of emotion he witnessed .14 “All along the road,” the general noted, “it has been affecting to see the people assembled not only at stations, but in front of farm houses, by the...

Share